Daily Market Recap

The S&P 500 rose by 0.51% today and the Dow was up 0.52%. The market grinded higher throughout the day with little volatility. Transports went down for the first time since January 11. Energy, health care, utilities and consumer staples were the best performing areas of the market today. Consumer discretionary, industrials and technology were lagging sectors.

Consumer Confidence came in below expectations. The index dropped 8.1 points from December’s level and came in at 58.6 for January. The Case-Shiller 20-city composite house price index increased 0.6% in November. The index increased 6.7% on a seasonally adjusted annual rate for the last three months.

Energy was the best group in the market with crude trading up 1% on the day and natural gas moving 2% lower. Drillers, oil service names and integrated oil companies all performed well. Refiners moved sharply higher across the board. Valero led the refiners higher after they reported earnings well in excess of all estimates. Oil service companies moved higher on reports of improvements in their international businesses.

Health care outperformed the broader market as pharma and distributors led the sector higher. Pfizer reported results in excess of expectations and closed higher by over 3%. Product sales, especially the drug Prevnar, came in well above expectations. Eli Lilly and Johnson & Johnson are other leading health care names that continue to perform well.

The consumer staple sector logged strong gains today. Leaders in the area were Pepsi, Tupperware and Proctor & Gamble.